I said that it took me a while in my relationship with Tracy to learn to leave my baggage at the door.

It took me a while to realize that I was even carrying baggage. 

I had done so much journaling, forgiving, honoring -- all the spiritual stuff of release --that I assumed release had happened. In short, I was trying to be peaceful about something that I wasn't peaceful about at all. I thought I could just say goodbye to it, put it behind me, and get on with loving myself and someone else. My goodness, I sure didn't want to waste anymore time with this thing. 

So, Tracy and I went forward together, both of stumbling a lot at first (because he, too, was carrying some pretty hefty suitcases), and I didn't share much with him about the past, because I didn't want to pull it in to the future. I was done with it, remember?

But it wasn't done with me.

Because I hadn't really let it go.

After revealing to me that she, too, could see my spirit guide and hear her name (in one of the biggest, brightest, most dazzling moments of psychic confirmation ever), I asked her if she would tell me my primary animal totems. This is a service she offered, and a skill she learned from her Native American grandfather. She softly focused her eyes on mine and revealed three animals. My primary totem, she said, was the phoenix.

"It's funny," she said. "Usually when I see people with this totem, they've had some sort of tragedy in their early life, like the death of a parent. But in your case it looks like an abusive relationship with a man."

I could have just as easily spoken those words myself. As soon as she said, but in your case, I knew what was coming next. There are several fires I could point to, actually, several times in my life when it seemed that all was lost, when I had to rise up, peel off a few more layers of skin, re-invent.

But I knew it was my capacity to be in a loving relationship with a man that was before me. I knew that was my challenge. I knew it was what I'd been winding toward since birth, the thing I had been trying to learn.

How to love freely, openly and without conditions, while still maintaining my boundaries, my integrity. How to love and expect love in return. How to say no to that which wrapped itself up in Valentine paper, but wasn't love at all. How to choose another and choose myself at the same time. How to accept no less than my worth, while loving from a compassionate place.

How, after despair, to rise.

We knew one another for a long time as friends before we became lovers. We talked, at length. He knew what his fears were. He knew their origins and how they impacted him still. He was honest about this - about his doubts that he could be in a relationship at all.

I felt calm as he shared his fears with me. I focused on the knowing I felt in my heart about him - the rightness of our being together.

I listened intently, but I wasn't as good at listening to myself. 

I wasn't as good at sharing what I needed to share - my fears, my hitches, my scars. I wanted to be strong for him. I wanted to take care of him. (This never works.)

The thing that happens is that you live a sort of double life. There's the life on the surface where everything is fine. You and your partner discuss the subjects of the day. You go about your business. Sometimes you notice that your voice sounds tinny and foreign or small, and this is alarming, but you ignore it and go one.

And then there is the life below the surface, deep below, where the old you is still doing battle, or is still tied to an emotional chair somewhere, or is afraid, or angry. 

Living a double life creates dissonance and dis-ease. Eventually, you are forced to admit that something isn't right. Something doesn't feel good. On the surface, it looks like nothing is wrong, so why are you crying? Why are you gritting your teeth? Why does every conversation sound like it's really about something else?

What do you mean by that? is a good indicator of the double life.

It causes explosions -- and Tracy and I certainly experienced our share of those. We both paid a price for the others' buried baggage -- but the love between us was always strong and we managed to come through those explosions--because we wanted to. Even in our darkest moments, we both knew we wanted to be together.

When I began to tell my story - my truth - and pull the shadowy part of me up from the depths, allowing it to integrate with the on-the-surface part of me, I saw that I was much stronger than I realized. I saw that so much of what I thought was pain was actually a phantom. It was instantly transformed by the light. I could exhale it easily.

The channels of communication opened up and the truth (the whole truth, neither beautiful or ugly - but everything all at once)-began to wash through our lives and our home and it made us free.

Your partner can't know what you don't reveal. Oh, he or she can feel it energetically - and that causes all sorts of misinterpretations and worry - but when you speak it out loud with no agenda, things change.

Once I told my story and freed myself of it, Tracy knew where my soft places were, he knew me better. So our interactions were better.

And I could see where I'd been holding him accountable for things he'd had no part in. I'd pulled the past into our present unknowingly, ready to defend myself.

It's only in putting down our defenses that we find love. It's only in that vulnerable strength of the truth. It's only in taking off the masks. 

Once everything was on the table, then we could start again - tending to the present moment - allowing light. Allowing the energy of new and now.

It can't be your goal to be perfect or to find a partner who is perfect. That doesn't exist. We've all got our suitcases - battered, worn, heavy, or so light we've almost forgotten them. Maybe it happens when you're dating. Maybe it happens after you've been married for five years. But  those suitcases will break open and things come spilling out. What's important is finding the person, either within yourself or within a partner, who can help you clean it up. Who says, Hey. All this crap you've been carrying around? Let's just leave it right here and move on.

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